A Pain in the Fron
By Badgergater

Email: [email protected]
Season: 7

Episode: Lifeboat
Category: Missing scenes, episode Lifeboat
Spoilers: Lifeboat, Legacy, Unnatural Selection, Urgo, Solitudes, Into the Fire, One False Step, Tangent, The Light
Pairing: None
Summary: About that headache Jack had, you know, the nail in the head one?
Warnings: Several four-letter words, this is Jack thinking, after all
Rating: Older teens (language)

Disclaimer: Stargate doesn't belong to me; I acknowledge the power of those that do own it; Despite the time and work that goes into fanfic, no money changes hands, this is just for fun. Fic may not be posted without author's consent.

Author's Pledge: Honest and accurate information provided to potential readers so that they may make informed choices on whether or not to read

Author's Note: For all those who remain fans of Jack O'Neill
/--------------------------\

Thump.

Another fraction of an inch of agony, incandescent flame burrowing it's way toward the center of my head.

Thack.

Torment expanding into a new section of my brain.

Whap.

My skull was fracturing into tiny pieces like grandma's best china cup shattering into a million shards as it hit the floor.

Thunk.

Oh, God, if only the guy with the really big hammer would quit driving that big and honkin’ nail deeper into my brain.

Whack.

The mad hammerer-thumper-whacker wasn't stopping. And the nail was getting bigger.

I think I woke up too soon.

No, wait, I know I woke up too soon.

No one whose head hurts as much as mine does has any business being awake.

Nope.

/-----x-----\

I opened my eyes anyway.

"Oy!"

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

Blame it on the fact that it's hard to think with your brain about to pop like an overfilled balloon.
Blame it on the fact that it's just, oh, maybe a slight bit disconcerting to, one minute, be strolling through an alien ship, on some other planet, counting freeze-dried aliens, and the next minute, find yourself smack on your backside in the all too familiar confines of the SGC's infirmary. With absolutely no memory of how you got from where you were to where you are.

Just really, really not good.

Even without the nail embedded clear to the center of my skull headache distorting everything.

Oh, God, if another alien had his hand in my head, I'm going to throw up. Which I just might be about to do anyway. Even though it upsets Doc and pisses off the nurses, and it ain't much fun for me, either.

Opening my eyes took all the strength I had, which was another bad sign. Eyelids aren't supposed to be weightier than naquadah, even on planets with three times Earth normal gravity. Which, unfortunately, probably meant that the problem wasn't with my eyelids, it was with all the rest of me. Like my brain's ability to send a decipherable signal to *any* part of my body. Kind of what you'd expect, what with that nine foot nail stabbing me right between the eyes.

As always, my first instinct was to get up and get on my feet. I know, I know, that isn't always the smartest thing to do, but well, that's me. Guess somewhere along the line, when maybe I should have been getting an extra dose of brains, I got a double-dose of stubborn instead. All that stubborn, it does come in handy, though.

My slight movements got the nurse's attention, and she called Doc over. I wished that she had given me a minute to figure out where I was, who I was, and why someone was trying to drill a hole through my head before announcing that I was awake.

Fraiser was standing beside my bed now, but not talking to me. "Inform General Hammond the Colonel's awake."

I heard the nurse answer "Yes, Ma'am."

"Hey, Doc." Wow, my voice worked. Amazing.

"How're you feeling, Sir?" Doc asked.

"Headache. Bad." Oops, let the truth slip out there. Then again, it's hard to think of something clever to say when your brain's about 99.9% nonfunctional.

"Well, I can take care of that, but first I need to know if you're feeling-- yourself."

That was an odd question. Who was I supposed to be feeling like? "Well, other than this-- nail through my head-- fine. Why?" Something important, some fact, was there, in the back of my brain. If only the pain wasn’t in the way, I thought I could remember what it was. What was so important. What I was forgetting. What I was missing.

"I'll explain later," said Friaser. "Teal'c managed to get the three of you back through the Stargate from the ship. My team took it from there."

Not much of an explanation, but it's good to know that Teal’c, who I couldn't see, was okay. That’s good, but what about-- "Carter and Daniel?" Any time Doc doesn't want to tell me something, I get a bad feeling, deep in my gut, a really, really bad feeling.

Doc tried to be calming. "Major Carter is suffering the same after effects as you, Sir."

After effects? After effects of what?

Janet turned away from me and I could see Carter, on the next bed over, stirring around, waking up. That was good. Maybe she'd remember what I couldn't recall.

"Janet?"

"Sam--" Doc walked over to stand beside my 2IC's bed. "Hey, it's gonna be fine. You've both suffered some sort of neural shock."

Just then General Hammond walked in. "Colonel? Major? How are you feeling?"

"Got a nail in my head, Sir." A reply not up to my usual glib standard, but Hammond did seem satisfied.

He chuckled, even seeming pleased for some reason. "That sounds like our Colonel O'Neill."

Somebody else has a Colonel O’Neill? I've been cloned again? Oh, wait, maybe it's the humorless guy with only one L.

Doc's talking again. "Their E.E.G.s show normal brain activity, Sir. They appear to be unaffected."

Normal? Wow. Thanks, Doc, that sounds like good news, but-- unaffected? Suddenly, I knew something was wrong. I knew what was missing, where that bad feeling was coming from. Doc said Carter was okay, and that Teal'c brought us back, but that left--"Unaffected by what? Where's Daniel?" I had got to get up, right then, damn it, lying like a slug on a bed wasn't going to help. I think better on my feet. I needed to get up. Pushing myself up off the sheets, getting my elbows under me for leverage, the room spinning like a whirligig gone mad-- I think I need to— I think I need —crap. I think I can’t do this. I struggled and pretty much failed to sit up and Janet rushed over to stop me.

"Sir, I need you to stay right where you are, at least until you're strong enough--"

Through gritted teeth I lied, "I'm fine."

"No, you're not, Sir," Doc insisted.

"Ow--no, I'm not." Oh God she was right. I couldn't even manage to sit up. I'd have been embarrassed, if I'd had the energy to be anything other than one giant throbbing headache.

So okay, I admitted it, I was not fine. The O'Neill bravado, which usually consists of getting up and moving on, pretending nothing hurts even when various body parts are in less than stellar condition, failed me that time. Hell, Doc, tiny little thing that she is, pushed me back down on the bed like I was a feather. Proving I was less than 100%. Way less. Like one percent, of one percent.

Oiy.

Because the other 99.999% of me was definitely one big and honkin' skull rattling thump-thump. Like someone was playing the drum solo from "WipeOut" inside my head.

With a sledgehammer.

And the effects were reverberating through every cell in my entire body. My head hurt, my back hurt, my neck hurt, my butt hurt, my gut hurt. My teeth ached, my ears, my skin, my toenails, hell, my hair hurt.

Just about then, Hammond left.

Doc looked smug.

Carter looked like hell.

I didn't want to know what I looked like. All I could do was hope that I didn't look as bad as I felt, because that meant I looked about as low as doggy doo and appeared as energetic as day old mold.

I slumped back down on the bed, eyes closed, trying not to move anything because everything hurt. "What happened to Daniel?" It’s hard to put any authority into a question when your brain has melted into mush.

"We’re not sure yet," Doc answered cautiously.

"What does that mean?"

"It means you ought to rest, Sir, and let us worry."

I opened my eyes a tad, just enough to catch her worried look. "Can’t, Doc. Tell me. Or I’ll have to go see for myself." It was an empty threat, and I knew it and she knew it, but we’d both danced this particular tango many times before.

She sighed and relented, at least a little. "Like you and Sam, Daniel also suffered some sort of neural disturbance."

What the hell did that mean? My brain wasn’t functioning well enough to figure it out. "Doc? I need to know."

"Daniel appears to have developed multiple personalities."

My eyes flew wide open, and my head lifted a good inch or two off the pillow, despite how much that hurt. "He’s been goulded?" I tried to sit up again, and didn’t get any further than the last time, though I think I managed to stay up on my elbows for a second or two longer before she pushed me right back down on the bed. Doc must be lifting weights. She's really strong for someone so vertically challenged.

Slowly, I slid back onto the bed. I’m pretty sure no one, not even Doc, noticed my relief once I was flat on my back once more. Life is so much easier when the walls, the floor and the ceiling aren't doing crazy loop de loops. I closed my eyes and found the darkness inside my eyelids very comforting.

"Colonel, Daniel has not been goulded. We don’t know yet what did happen to him, but he’s here in the infirmary, in an isolation room. We’re running tests and working on possible solutions."

"Which means you don't have a clue what's going on," I blurted out loud.

"No, Sir, we don't," she admitted, quietly.

I opened one eye and fixed a glare on her. "Don’t you let that damned McKenzie anywhere near him." I was surprised I could even remember the shrink’s name. At least two neurons, maybe three now, had to be back in working order. That was progress.

"I won't, Sir. Now, it would help if you could tell us what happened to you on the ship. What do you remember, Colonel?"

"I was walking through the ship, counting aliens, and then, ah, there was a light coming at me. Big, bright light, moving fast," Gawd, it hurt to think. "It was a train, right?"

"We don’t know what it was."

"I’m not volunteering to go back and find out. Not right now anyway."

I could hear the smile in her voice. "That’s okay, Sir. You don’t have to." I heard her moving around the bed, then felt her hand gently touching my arm. "I’m getting you another dose of pain medication, Sir. It should help the headache."

"The headache doesn’t need any help."

"I know it’s bad, Colonel." The hand patted my arm again. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that what I knew was meant as a comforting gesture was actually sending ripples of pain sloshing from my arm to the throbbing blister that was my brain.

A moment later I could hear Doc, at the far end of the room, murmuring to one of the nurses. I might have been able to hear what she was saying, except for the drumbeat pounding in my head, you know, those really, really, big fat drums that they keep in the back of the orchestra and whack with those big whoppin' sticks? Every time Fraiser said something, the drum went 'thrum thrum thrum' and my brain cells vibrated like the speakers in a teenager's car, you know, the kind who go down the street and rattle every window in the house, playing  P.Daddy or Snip Doggity Dog.

I just had to hope that my skull wouldn't shatter.

So I probably didn't hear what she said about adding something to the IV which was already taped to my hand, but boy, did I feel it. Whatever it was, it definitely was the good stuff. Not that it made the headache actually go away, it just sent me so far off into la-la land that I would have needed a 200-power telescope to find my brain. I couldn't feel how bad my head hurt because I couldn't feel a thing, nothing at all.

Oiy, I sighed, and slipped away into a pleasant dream about Mary Steenburgen and Uma Thurman fighting over one gray-haired, thumpy-headed Colonel.

/-----x-----\

Go on to Part Two

==================================

A Pain in the Fron

By Badgergater

Part two of two

I don’t know if the drugs made the pain any less, but they did make me sleep.

Eventually, though, I had to wake up again.

Some days just go from bad to worse.

"Colonel, how’s the headache?"

Thankfully, I didn’t have to open my eyes to know it was Doc asking me the question. "Oh, it’s still in perfect form."

Her voice sounded a little worried. "As bad as before?"

I thought about nodding, but realized I shouldn’t. "Nearly." Wishful thinking, maybe, but it did seem like the bravado was making a teeny, tiny first attempt at a comeback.

/-----x-----\

I'm a good judge of headaches. I could probably write a book on them, actually, the "Idiot's Guide to the Intergalactic Headache" or, "A Pain in the Fron."

See, I've had headaches before.

In fact, I'm quite sure I'm the SGC's, if not the entire planet's, headache champion.

Headaches aren't a rarity in the SGC. Most of us around here, at least those of us who go through the gate, do get headaches. It's not something we talk about, much, though Doc questions us about them now and again, just to remind us, I think, that she's aware of them.

Carter said once she thought maybe the headaches we get are related to the way the gate disassembles our molecules on this end, then reassembles them on the far end. That maybe some of the neural connections weren't reconnected exactly, perfectly, properly, just right. Me, I mostly shudder and convince myself not to think about that.

Then there's Doc's theory, that the headaches have something to do with the cold of the wormhole, and how the bits of us get frozen as they travel. Sort of like those brain freeze headaches you get if you eat your ice cream too fast.

Me, I think it's stress, tension, strain, worry. Much as we all, or at least I, have learned to take gate travel for granted, going offworld *is* stressful. There are a million billion unknown dangers in unfamiliar territory. Air, gravity, water, plants, animals, people, that are different, and potentially deadly. Hell, an innocent looking bug bite could kill you. Then we have to worry about the known dangers like the Goa'uld and the Replicators, or just plain hostile natives or cranky commanding officers. Even gatelag, the change of body cycles when you leave Cheyenne Mountain just after breakfast and step through the gate to find the natives consuming their evening meal, can throw your body systems entirely out of whack.

Not that those travel headaches are anything akin to some of the other headaches I've had.

Though it was a long time ago, the skull fractures headaches were pretty memorable. I don't recommend cracking your skull. It's soooo not fun. Let's leave it at that.

Still, that hadn't hurt like this 'neural malfunction' headache hurt.

This headache was a whopper, a giant, the supersized, triple extra large version of any common headache.

This one was worse even than those zat-induced headaches I'm all too familiar with. No kidding. Now, I've been zatted more than my fair share of times; I may hold another intergalactic record there. The resulting headaches are a bitch, to be honest. Sort of like your brains frying inside your skull, which, as you might guess, is not pleasant. Nope, not. Add to it the additional effect of all your nerve endings, from the skull down through the spine and all the way to the tips of your toes, turning into molten lava, well, it's not fun. The head hurts and the body hurts. Everywhere. Double, triple, quadruple whammy.

It feels a lot like the headache from the planet of the bald naked white guys. No, not that they had headaches, though maybe they did, come to think of it, but since they didn't talk, we don't know if they did. I sure had one though. I can tell you, the headache I got from that sublime- sublet- sub—from that sound we couldn't really hear-- it was awful. Made me grumpy, grouchy, argumentative, and impatient—though I must admit, calling Daniel "Plant Boy" was one of my more brilliant moments. To this day, if I want to annoy him, I call him that. It's a winner every time-- makes him scowl and me grin.

There was also the glider headache, the one caused by too little oxygen while Teal'c and I drifted in space in that tiny little ship, on our way out into the galaxy, and eternity. That was another nasty pain in the fron. It hurt, a lot, for a really, really long time, and I hadn't had so much as an old fashioned aspirin to ease it.

And, while talking headaches, I shouldn't leave out that addictive Light thingy, on that planet where we found Loren. Any time I got just a bit too far away, the skull-thumping started in earnest, and only returning to the fancy light-show thingy made me feel any better. I hated that, being chained to the damn alien thing.

Aliens in the head are never fun, and Lord knows I've had more than my fair share of them.
Urgo in the brain, well, he was just plain irritating, though just a minor headache compared to the others. The blue mold guys in my head, well, the pain was more in my shoulder than in my head. Much worse were Machello's little Linvris gould killer thingies. And they had the added side effect of imitating a really bad LSD trip.

None of those headaches, though, alien as they were, bore any resemblance to the pain produced by that Tok'ra memory device. Maybe it hurt so much because it wasn't a real Tok'ra using it, back in Hathor's fake SGC. Or when Apophis used it on Netu, and turned it up to the screeching fingernails on chalkboard level. Though that headache, I have to say, paled in comparison to the way he ripped my heart in two with that image of Charlie.

A lot like that nasty little incident out on Halla, That hand in the head thing, well, it's as bad as it looks. It was definitely one of the worst ever on the O'Neill Headache-O-Meter. Not just because of the agony level, which I'd declare pretty close to a perfect 10, but also for the additional psychological nastiness factor. The I-don't-want-that-alien-digging-through-my-gray-matter aspect, multiplied by the personal violation of it, made that one not just bad, but bad-bad. Not to mention the nasty little guilt trip it invoked —okay, stop, not going there. Let's just leave it as a nasty, nasty headache, but not quite the gold medalist.

Nope, that I'd have to give to the snake in the head. Everything else pales in comparison to that one. Maybe the sheer terror of it, which I will admit to feeling, bravado or not, magnified the pain. But if you've never felt an oversized worm eating its way through your skull, well, lucky you, because believe me, it's indescribable.

This headache, well, it's a monster, right up there toward the top of the list with the most monstrous ones I've ever had. I can't describe it any other way than as a red hot nail driven all the way to the middle of my skull, and sitting there, pulsing.
/-----x-----\

So I got Doc to release me by telling her the headache was going away.

It was only a little white lie.

Very white, like the white hot nail still throbbing in the center of my gray matter.

Of course, I'm pretty sure she didn't believe me. She gave me that look, the one that was part sympathy and part I-don't-believe-you and part I'm-going-to-keep-my-eye-on-you and part you're-a-dumb-bastard and part I-admire-your-grit-if-not-your-brains, and part I-understand-I-think and part if-you-keel-over-it's-not-my-fault-you're-being-such-a-hard-headed ass.

The fact that I swayed and damn near fell off the bed when I sat up probably didn't help convince her.

And the fact that I couldn't quite manage to find the floor with my feet probably didn't help either.

And neither did the fact that I staggered, closed my eyes, swallowed back the surge of bile rising in my throat and was quite obviously whiter than the sheets I'd just been lying on. None of that helped convince her either. Nor was the sickly imitation of a smile, all the best that I could muster, going to reassure Doc that I was fit for anything but lying flat on my back. And then there was the way that my hand, entirely of its own accord, reached blindly for the wall, and just sort of stuck there, like glue. Not that it was supporting me or anything. Nope. Just felt good there, holding up the wall.

Oh yeah, I was convincing.

Not.

However, Fraiser knows how stubborn I am.

And, of course, how important this was.

How much I needed to see for myself what was happening with Daniel.

And, of course, she also knew that, once I reached the observation room, there would be a chair I could plop my sorry, dizzy butt into.

She really didn't have to send that nurse along with me, though. Totally unnecessary. I do know how to find my way to the observation area of the isolation rooms.

Yes, even with my eyes closed.

I'll give that nurse credit. She didn't fuss and she didn't hover, she just kept one hand on my arm, which steadied me nicely, and walked alongside, sort of steering me in the right direction, making sure that I found my way to my destination. At the doorway, with a smile, she left.

Good girl.

I could fall in love with a nurse like that.
/-----x-----\

There was, however, nothing good about what I found. Daniel would have been better off with my headache, and believe me, I wouldn't have wished that headache on a Goa'uld.

Watching Daniel acting like that, if that really was Daniel doing his best Sybil imitation, didn't do a thing for my aching skull.

First, because, in order to watch, I had to keep my balance so I wouldn't fall off the chair, as such falling would have greatly impaired my ability to retain my dignity as a senior officer in the USAF. I think maybe there's a rule about that in the Air Force code of conduct manual, something about not lying on the floor where the enlisted personnel can see you. Sort of deleterious to keeping the respect an officer needs, you know.

Second, because I had to keep my eyes open in order to see Daniel. Keeping my eyes open meant that there was real danger that the swirling nausea in my gut might erupt at an inopportune time. Like now. See note above about maintaining an officer's dignity-I'm pretty sure the 'don't do it' rule also applies to barfing all over yourself as well as passing out on the floor.

Third, because I was worried about Daniel, and being worried, about anything, especially one of my people, gives me a headache. And I already had one of those.

So I sat there, and watched and wished I wasn't seeing what I was seeing, and pretty much just worried myself into a bigger headache than I already had. Which I thought wasn’t possible.

I could have stayed in bed.

But I couldn't you know?

So when I asked to stay with Daniel, everyone I think pretty much accepted that it was me repaying the favor, you remember, the one when Daniel wouldn't leave me when I had the Ancient's knowledge stuffed into my head.

I knew my reason was a lie.

Doc knew it.

Hammond knew it.

Teal'c knew it.

We just didn't talk about it.

Damn stinkin' headache. I should be out there, back on that planet, helping find the answer, not sitting in here waiting for my head to explode.

/-----x-----\/-----x-----\/-----x-----\

Okay, yes, I wanted my teammate back. I'd been in Daniel's predicament, locked out of my own body's control room, and I for damn sure wasn't going to let that happen to him.

My team always comes first.

But I shouldn't have been so hard on that poor man, Pharrin. This wasn't his fault. And I've been where he was, too, sort of. I knew his pain and his grief.

I should have treated him more gently, knowing what I know.

I guess maybe it was the headache, making me crankier than usual.

That's the only way I can explain it.

I should have been more understanding.

The poor man had just lost his son.

Though, in a very strange way, he was getting him back—an incredible but unbearable, gift.

But I, more than anyone, knew that wasn't enough, and never would be.

/-----x-----\/-----x-----\/-----x-----\